Rising sea levels are flooding Tuvalu, Kiribati and other small island nations, threatening water and food supplies, as well as the existence of the nations themselves.

What are these small island nations doing to fight for their very survival?

What are we in Portland doing to contribute to the fight?

How are we affected by the same changes?

Learn more about this important issue from Gary Braasch, a Portland environmental photojournalist, and the International Environmental Law Project (IELP), a nonprofit organization based at Lewis & Clark Law School. Gary has traveled to the South Pacific to document people directly confronted by rising sea levels. He will share a slideshow of his award-winning climate change photography, including reports on his travels to island nations and documentation of American shores affected by rising seas, higher waves and the oil from the BP Gulf blowout. IELP is working with activists and the governments of low-lying island nations to negotiate a new international climate change regime later this month in Cancun, Mexico and to pursue alternative legal strategies for these countries that are likely to face extinction in the not-so-distant future. Both Gary and IELP will travel to the Cancun climate meetings, and Gary will return to the Pacific in February to re-photograph effects on the islands.

About Gary Braasch

Gary Braasch’s photgraphs about nature, environment, biodiversity and global warming have appeared in Time, National Geographic, Vanity Fair and Scientific American, among many other magazines. He received the Ansel Adams Award from the Sierra Club and the Outstanding Nature Photographer citation from the North American Nature Photography Association. Gary Brasch is author of Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World, which Al Gore calls “essential reading for every citizen.”

About International Environmental Law Project (IELP)

IELP is the only on-campus legal clinic of its kind that provides legal advice to NGOs and governments on the implementation and development of international environmental law. As the Director and Staff Attorney, Professors Chris Wold and Erica Lyman work on a range of issues, including international wildlife and biodiversity conservation, climate change, and trade and the environment, among other issues.